In many modern organizations, the cost of Human Resources is a major expense, but this expense is often poorly measured, analyzed and managed. Automated devices—E.g., computers—are often used, but their performance-improvement potential is not maximized. Productivity bottlenecks are hidden, and improvement is possible mostly by intuition, rather than as a systematic effort.
In many modern organizations, people work a large portion of the time with computers. The modern computer is capable of performing many types of tasks, and the person using the computer performs many different tasks with the computer. Such tasks may include accounting, scientific research, engineering, artistic design, documentation, customer support, marketing, publishing and the like. In addition to the profusion of different tasks, workers often perform several similar tasks, such as preparing printed materials for three different customers in the same day. For a worker or business manager, the question rises of how the cost of each task can be determined. This information must be established, so that the customer can be correctly charged, and so that the business does not lose money.
Financial considerations are further complicated by additional factors that may cause productivity bottlenecks: Computer software and hardware cost money; Poorly selected, configured or used software and hardware may impede work; Insufficient employee training may cause waste of resources; insufficient human, hardware and software resources allocation leads to time wasted by the users. Conversely, excessive human, hardware and software resources allocation leads to waste and negatively impacts competitiveness. Computers and users interact with each other, sharing resources, and therefore may interfere with each other's progress; and any other operational factor that affects the users' work. Indirect factors relating to computers and their users also affect the organization's performance: Intentional or non-intentional breaches of security through the use of computers; Conscious or unconscious breaches of license contracts with vendors; etc.
One currently available method for determining the cost of a task is intuitive estimation by either the worker or the manager. This method is, by definition, very inaccurate. Overestimation will cause the price to be too high, causing the business to lose competitiveness. Underestimation will cause the price to be too low, causing the business to lose money on tasks performed. Emphasis on the wrong cost factors will prevent taking the right action to improve the organization's competitiveness.
Another method is to oblige the employee to write down exactly what tasks he/she performs. This method interferes with the job of the worker, creating an extra cost and again diminishing competitiveness of the business. Switching often between tasks, aggravates the interference, and increases the likelihood that the employee will revert to intuitive estimation.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,684,945 to Chen et al, entitled “System and method for maintaining performance data in data processing system”, is directed to a performance monitor that detects pathological states of a monitored system. The performance monitor defines a library of known pathologies, which are expressed by the values the performance monitor can measure. The performance monitor captures and statistically analyzes its inputs, and then compares these inputs to measurements statistics in a known-problem library. When a match is found, the performance monitor may generate a suitable notification. The performance monitor is also capable of recording and playing-back events that show a defective state of the monitored system, for example for re-creating the situation for later examination.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,506,955 to Chen et al, entitled “System and method for monitoring and optimizing performance in a data processing system”, is directed to a system for incrementally filtering and analyzing incoming data, with generating alarms and automatic on-line optimization actions on tracked processes and systems as a result of the real-time analysis. The system concentrates on the handling of alarms, and the different ways the alarms affect external entities. The system is based on mathematical expressions used to manipulate the measured data. The system also keeps the intermediate results of its calculations, to allow other programs to use these results.
It is therefore advantageous to collect over time significant amounts of low-level data about automated devices used by the users, and analyze these data over time to achieve insight into what improves the users' ability to perform their jobs and what hinders their performance. Such analysis may relate to a single user, to a group of users, to the effect of a user's habits on his/her performance, to the effect of one user's actions on other users' performance, etc. The results of such analysis can help users, managers and organizations to improve their competitive position in their respective fields.